Sticks and Daffodils
by Lee Etscovitz, Ed.D.
Spring is, for me, a very special time of the year. This is not to say
that, as a resident of the northeastern part of the United States, I do not
find the other three seasons to be special. There is something unique about
each of them. But spring, particularly the month of April, brings with it
an interesting situation. As I walked around my property on a warm
mid-April weekend recently, examining the delightful daffodils and at the
same time picking up the branches and sticks that had accumulated over the
winter, I suddenly realized that, as a transgendered person, I, too, have
both sticks and daffodils in my life.
There is a time, at least for most of us, especially among the
transgendered, to throw away the outmoded and useless debris of our lives
in order to make way for new growth, new beginnings, the daffodils that
point to the summer ahead of us. Fulfilling our dreams, however, is not
usually easy. In fact, the process is often painful. The following poem,
called "April," speaks to the difficulty we face:
April
really is the cruelest,
but also the friendliest,
month of the year.
April
tells the truth
as winter warms
into spring,
and potent roots
nudge the budding earth,
while dry roots
yield not, share not
even a hint of growth.
April
can be cruel
after a winter of hope,
as dryness
here and there
mocks
the expected bloom.
April
also clarifies,
showing me,
and giving back to me,
out of potency and dryness,
the real roots
of my life.
April
is a springtime reminder,
a rebirth of my soul,
telling me who I really am,
that I may have
my summer,
and then,
and only then,
the true autumn
of my life.
What is it that makes the process of personal renewal so difficult? Why
do we often have such difficulty in gathering and discarding the sticks and
debris of our lives, let alone allowing ourselves to enjoy the personal
daffodils that push for recognition and acceptance? Sometimes the sticks
and debris keep the daffodils from blooming, and then what promises to be
the beauty of spring and summer in our personal lives seems instead like a
continuation of the drabness of our own winter.
There is a time for each season, but unlike the automatic seasonal
change of the natural world, change and growth in human nature require
human effort, and even that effort requires effort. I am not trying to
speak here in riddles. It is just that life itself is something of a
riddle, and I am trying to make sense of one of its biggest riddles, the
riddle of human change, especially gender change.
As I say in my poem, April is both cruel and friendly, full of both
sticks and daffodils alike. What are some of those sticks? They are our
individual limitations, our weaknesses, physical as well as emotional, our
old habits, and our fears. And there are social limitations involving our
own interpersonal skills, our relationships, our situations in terms of
family, work, finances, and intimate involvements. Rejection is painful,
yet it is a risk which the transgendered person faces, at least in a world
where gender change of any kind is not fully understood, let alone
accepted.
None of this is easy to handle, but what start out as limitations can
also be seen, not as barriers to happiness, but as hurdles to be conquered.
It takes time to grow into oneself bodily, emotionally, and socially. The
daffodils did not bloom from nothing. They started out as bulbs which sat
buried in the ground during the long winter. So, too, do the daffodils in
our lives require time to get ready for the right season, for the right
moment to blossom.
Discovering that right moment and doing something about it are among the
challenges we each face. We can, of course, plunge ahead blindly, not
thinking through the implications of our gender change efforts. Or we can
take greater personal responsibility for our lives by moving forward with
our eyes open and striving to distinguish between the sticks and the
daffodils, between the dry roots and the potent ones. Good gender
counseling, for those who seek it, serves to clarify this difference as
well as the requirements for proper nourishment, so that the transgender
expression that often lies dormant within us can bloom properly.
It takes courage to face spring. The truth following our inner winter
may not always yield the bloom we expect, or it may simply take longer to
realize than we like. But whatever the truth, whatever our spring thaw
uncovers, we will be preparing the way for genuine personal growth. As a
transgendered person, I have finally learned to welcome both the sticks and
the daffodils in my life, so that I can clean up my act and begin nurturing
my real roots. The month of April is, for me, a reminder of all this.
Want to comment? Send email to Dr. Etscovitz at hmdm@voicenet.com.
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